


Sleeperhold

by Argyle



Series: Catch as Catch Can [1]
Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: M/M, Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Rehabilitation, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-06
Updated: 2014-04-27
Packaged: 2018-01-18 10:39:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 3,220
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1425514
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Argyle/pseuds/Argyle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He's hardwired to disappear.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

After, he disappears. It comes to him easily, instinctively, as if hardwired. Which of course is the truth of it. He kicks over a charity clothing dropbox and takes what he needs. And he picks his bloodied uniform clean, pockets anything of value, before stuffing it in a trashcan two blocks from the Lincoln Memorial and making his way back down the Mall.

It's there that he sees Steve again. Steve's wide, open eyes are staring out from the side of a bus shelter, larger than life and twice as bright: an advertisement made to look like one of those damned V for Victory posters that had always stopped Steve in his tracks. Steve'd mooned over those things like he was looking at no less than Betty Grable in her unmentionables—

_"C'mon, Steve! We're gonna miss the first pitch."_

No. He doesn't want to remember. But he does, without warning.

_"You're the one who spent an hour getting ready. Where'd you think we were going?"_

_"It's the last game of the season. You never know who you'll run into."_

_"With our record? I wouldn't trust a gal who made it 'til now. It's what they call 'delusions of grandeur.'"_

_He'd stifled the urge to push Steve's hair back from his brow, ruffle it in the way Steve complained about, but pressed into, catlike, every time. Instead he huffed out a laugh and told Steve to watch his stupid mouth._

_Steve smiled. "Why don't you watch it for me?"_

_Two hours, four bags of peanuts, and a helluva win later, he did._

_"Bucky?"_

_"Yeah, Steve?"_

_"C'mere."_

_He'd leaned in to kiss his best pal, licked at his mouth—and then laughed. "I've tasted anchovies less salty!" Steve had then somehow gotten those wiry little arms around him and proceeded to drag them both down to the cot._

_"You're no treat yourself…"_

One. Two. His mind is humming, but he forces himself to draw in a breath. He clenches and unclenches his fists in his coat pockets. He reads again: _Exhibit Now in Its Final Weeks: Don't Miss Captain America_ , and stands there staring at it longer than he means to. Long enough to draw attention. A bus pulls up to the curb, but he barely hears it. "You getting on?" the driver calls out.

"What?" There's no reason to feel exposed. That comes without warning too. His back stiffens, and his legs shift into a tight, defensive stance.

But the driver isn't interested in him. He reads it in her face. She thinks he's drunk.

A dozen meters beyond stands the Smithsonian itself.

Why now, of all things? The thrumming in his head becomes a steady thump. At first he thinks he'll only cross the street. Then he goes inside. And he's shaken – he tells himself to turn heel, get the hell out of there – and sickened and _pleased_ when he sees the place still doesn't charge for admission.

And he thinks: _Just for a while_. Just to rest his feet.


	2. Chapter 2

He isn't used to taking care of himself. Before, he was simply given what he needed: the things he was told his mission would require. He had a whole detail of men attending to him. They nourished him and shaved his jaw and spread balm on the ever-tender scar tissue which stretched between the metal arm and his own flesh. They cleaned his wounds. Spread him out. Sewed him up.

They scrubbed every last glimmer of doubt from his brain.

It wasn't that they saw a precious thing in him. They were simply protecting their investment from depreciation.

And now, two days after he washed up on the dirty Potomac shore, after he dragged a man he shouldn't have known, could never have loved, along with him: he's _hungry_.

The realization fills him with no small amount of relief, because at first— Well. His stomach panged and he thought, quite reasonably, that it was over. They'd implanted something in his guts. When it was activated – or hell, maybe it was set to just _go off_ after he spent a certain amount of time away from his cell – a couple of organs would rupture and he'd bleed out from the inside. The tactic wasn't without a certain elegance. And it guaranteed pain.

For several long minutes, he waited in an alleyway, resting on his haunches. Then he sat on the ground. He pressed his hands to his stomach and forced himself to breathe—

A door swung open and out stepped a couple of men in cook's pants and aprons. One was saying, "I'm tellin' you, Dean, I've had it. Kid couldn't toss a dough to save his life! And now this. Fifty bucks' worth on the floor."

"Give it another week, Al." Dean lit a cigarette. "You think you were hot shit after a couple of days in the kitchen?"

The voices were loud. Oblivious to his presence.

"Yeah, yeah..." Al disappeared inside for a moment, then returned with a stack of boxes. Full boxes, if the sound they made when they fell into the dumpster was to be trusted.

Three minutes later, the alley was quiet.

And he is still alive. He is breathing, and suddenly he understands. The dumpster's scarcely more than an arm's length away and he can make out the rich, greasy scent of Big Al's NY Style Pizza. His stomach rumbles. His head is pounding as he takes the first box off the stack, lifts the lid—and oh, the sight is revolting, a mess of sauce and cheese and blistered crust, all of it slightly folded in on itself, peeled and torn from being scooped off the floor.

It's still warm. He eats three slices without stopping, and then one more. There's a new, full feeling in his stomach. It must be better than the emptiness. And yet after another moment, he reels, shaken, as if his body doesn't know how to process such a heavy meal. Doesn't _remember_.

A brittle laugh threatens to break free from his throat.

But somehow, he keeps all of it down.

Then he rips the crusts from two of the other mangled pizzas, enough for a day. Maybe more. He folds the lot into his bandana, a garish, starchy thing he stole from the souvenir kiosk at the Smithsonian.

Why the hell had he done that? It doesn't even look like the Captain's shield. But at least it'll keep the damp from getting in.


	3. Chapter 3

_Even without the baked-in, late summer stench; all the noise, the car horns and sirens, the backyard mongrels barking their fucking heads off at the nearly-full moon; the smoke and the steam, he couldn't say the city was beautiful. But it was livable. Especially on nights he really_ could _stay up late, when he didn't have to work in the morning but didn't care much for going out, and so he and Steve took the narrow staircase to the roof of their apartment building. He lit a cigarette – downwind of Steve, as he always made sure, but even before he'd stubbed it out Steve sidled up beside him, close enough that they touched hip-to-thigh as they stood staring over the concrete ledge._

_It wasn't a long way down. If he dropped a penny to the sidewalk, nothing would happen— Except he'd be down a penny. And yet he liked to think they were far enough removed from the world that he could lean in and brush his lips against Steve's neck, kiss behind Steve's ear, take Steve's lobe between his teeth in the way that always coaxed an appreciative murmur from Steve's throat._

_And then this: "Bucky, you ever think about gettin' out of here?"_

_"Like where? Jersey?"_

_Steve shrugged. "No. It's just… A guy like you could really do something with his life."_

_"What makes you think I'm not happy right where I am?" Where they both were. He didn't let the tremor he felt in his guts make it up to his mouth. "What if I like it here?"_

He jolts awake. There's no lag, no gasp before he's alert. His reflexes take over. His hand hovers above the pistol tucked in his waistband. He's— he's holed up in a shabby room. The ground floor of an abandoned row house seven blocks south of the Capitol. Zero three hundred hours.

And he's sweating. His clothes are almost soaked through. _Wet_. Fat droplets slide off his brow, down his temples, back around his scalp and through his unkempt hair. And when he reaches up to clear his eyes, his hand shakes.

It's the drugs – the mood stabilizers and steroids and pain suppressants. The amphetamines. He's been free of injections and dry-swallowed pills, tee-fucking-total, for seventy-two hours, and each fiber and sinew, every cell in him, hates him for it.

He's crashing.

He can't hear for the roar in his ears. The buzzing in his brain—the _need_. Trembling, over-stimulated and sick, he can't even keep from spilling water down his front as he swigs from the jug at his side. So he just folds into himself, huddles down with his arms braced against his chest, screws his eyes shut…

Remembers, unbidden: _"What if I like it here?_

_Steve'd wrinkled his nose. Shrugged halfheartedly, because sure, he wouldn't mind fighting over this one. "I just don't want to be the one holding you back," he said. And then: "Besides, you're getting eaten alive."_

_"What?" And then he looked down to see a mosquito on his arm, still attached, drinking his fill. He flicked at it, his thumb and forefinger dragging over the welt that appeared in its wake. "Sweet blood runs in my family, but me? I'm irresistible."_

_Sure enough, though: Steve was right. Back in their sweltering apartment, stripped down to their drawers and splayed out on the narrow bed, Steve grappled for him, held his wrists to keep him from scratching the dozen swollen bite marks that had risen up over his skin. "Quit it, Bucky. You're only gonna make it worse."_

_"I can think of something that'd make it better."_

_"Yeah? And what would that be?" Steve drawled. But he knew. They both did._

Dawn comes, and he's still trembling.


	4. Chapter 4

"An interesting piece. Good craftsmanship," the pawnbroker says casually. He turns the knife over in his hands, his thumb working down the pearl handle to release the blade. It's recently been sharpened. "Austrian-made, early twentieth century. Where'd you come by it?"

Not where. Who. A name beats though his mind as he glances at the array of weapons mounted to the wall above the pawnbroker's head. Pistols. Rifles with bayonets. Swords and machetes and knives. Most of them are antiques, improperly maintained if not wholly distended, the relics of old wars. The sight makes him itch. And the name—

_Pierce: he'd breached Pierce's security perimeter, come without being called, planted himself at the kitchen table like he belonged there and Pierce was furious, visibly shaken even as he tried to disguise it. But before that, he'd lifted the knife from a shelf in Pierce's library. He liked the weight of it in his hand. The slender ornamentation. And the idea that a thing could be at once useless and of great worth came to him, unbidden, like a figure appearing out of fog—_

The name no longer matters.

He doesn't shrug. He doesn't even move.

"No matter." The broker smiles, his old brown eyes glinting like the edge of that knife. "I'll give you one-eighty for it."

As simple as that, nine dingy twenty-dollar bills are laid on the counter. The knife will sell for double that amount if what's in the glass showcase is any indication, but he's content to push the wad of notes into his pocket. Outside, the street is quieting. He ducks his head and makes his way east, to the river, towards a dry drainage pipe that might house him for the night.

And then for the first time within memory, a newspaper headline catches his eye: CITY REELS FOLLOWING ATTACK, OFFICIALS EST. BILLIONS IN DAMAGE.

Beneath, there's a photograph of the still-smoldering wreckage of the helicarriers. Casualty counts. The names of those still missing. Disaster relief hotlines, trauma centers, and this: _Captain Rogers sustained significant bodily injuries during the event, but is expected to make a full recovery._

The paper is three days old.

Something clicks in his mind. A scene slides into view, revealing color and sound and mechanism. He was responsible for those injuries. He was ordered to kill Rogers. Captain America— _Steve_. With every fiber of his being, he'd meant to complete his mission. And he failed. Willfully.

 _Why?_ Enough faculty remains in him to answer his own question. He knows that this Steve, the one he fought on the carrier, isn't the same man who fills up the dark places when he closes his eyes; when he tries to make sense of fragments newly unearthed and yet left to him. And if he ever was the James Buchanan Barnes he saw at the Smithsonian, the Sergeant who was held behind enemy lines, only to be rescued by Captain America—the Bucky who made it his lot to protect a small, scrappy kid from Brooklyn, who loved that bullheaded son of a bitch in ways he could never admit, least of all to himself— Well. He isn't that man either.

But damned if there isn't something in him that wonders what it would mean if he was.

The rotors within his metal arm whirr as he folds the news sheet in half, half again. There's no feeling. The paper is too delicate for the fine sensors in his fingertips to detect. But he's precise. Beholden to muscle memory. Without thinking, he applies the necessary pressure and in another moment has pushed the thing into his pocket, and is reaching for the pistol tucked at the small of his back. The press of it against his spine is reassuring. Warm. It steadies him.

And when he starts walking again, this time it's in the direction of Steve's apartment. His legs know the way even if his mind doesn't. And he tells himself that it's only to see for his own eyes that Steve made it out in one piece.


	5. Chapter 5

_He slid the record from its sleeve and held it up to inspect the vinyl in the half-light. Not bad. Only a few scratches, and none of them deep enough to make the needle skip—even on the old victrola Steve'd rescued from the curb the year before, temperamental bastard that it was. He set the record on the turntable and flipped it on._

_The speaker buzzed, and then: "Just follow my lead."_

__When the deep purple falls over sleepy garden walls, and the stars begin to twinkle in the night-- __

_Steve sniffed. "You're out of your head, Buck." But his hand was warm and dry, and his grip was steady._

_"Yeah, gone fishing," he said, taking a step to the left. "Watch my face, not your feet. That's it. Now right again."_

__In the mist of a memory you wander all back to me, breathing my name with a sigh. __

_"Bing Crosby? You tryin' to put me to sleep?"_

_"Just figured we'd start out slow. Glenn Miller ain't going anywhere if it turns out you're a natural." And yet in truth he'd only bought_ Deep Purple _because it was on sale for a nickel at the junk shop he passed coming home from work, and a nickel was exactly how much was left in his pocket; he'd already blown a buck twenty on the bottle of bourbon they'd both regret come morning._

_"I don't think we have to worry about that possibility," Steve said._

_"I dunno. You've so far managed to avoid stepping on my toes."_

_"Dumb luck."_

_"Yeah? You must be drunker than I realized if you think luck's got anything to do with it."_

_Steve's mouth curled. "Yeah. You know me, all smoke and mirrors. Half a thimbleful and I'm a regular Houdini."_

_"Yeah?" he murmured again. He wanted nothing more than to wipe that smirk off of Steve's dumb face. So he did. When the needle ran out of grooves to play, when the speaker was eking out a low snick-hiss hum, they were both too busy to flip the record._

And this one, the copy he lifts from Steve's bookshelf, looks like it's never been played, or done with such care as to not show it: _Bing Crosby with Orchestra, Directed By Matty Malneck_ , every letter pristine on the old Decca label. Even the sleeve is crisp.

They all are: the Goodmans and the Basies, the Astaires and the Dorseys. And at the front of the stack, the single Glenn Miller.

"I just got that one. Ebay. Haven't even had a chance to listen to it yet."

He stiffens. Then he spins around and in an instant is springing forward, tackling Steve to the bare floor. Steve's arm is pinned, five metal fingertips pressing hard enough against him to bruise—or worse.

His other hand holds the pistol to Steve's temple.

Steve swallows. "Okay. I see how it might have been a bad idea to startle you like that." And he should be putting up a fight, should try to break free before he takes a bullet to the head. His muscles are taut, ready; but he doesn't move. "I just can't believe…" He sucks in a breath. "I can't believe there isn't something to it."

"What?"

"You being here. _You_ found me," he says. "Listen: just let me up. You don't have to put the gun away. You don't even have to drink the cup of coffee I'm about to offer you. But I'd like it if you stuck around long enough to hear what I have to say."

After a pause, he eases his grip on Steve's arm and slides off of Steve's middle. He gets to his feet.

Steve does the same, deliberately, rubbing at the small of his back. "Still smarts a little from the last time," he explains. And then: "Kitchen's this way."

There is no reason for Steve to trust him. After all, he'd broken into Steve's apartment and spent the last two hours dissecting its contents, rifling through anything that might offer up an answer—and finding none. That realization had distracted him to the point that he didn't hear Steve's approach, and it was sloppy, intolerable—

Steve's back is turned. He reaches into the cabinet and retrieves a canister, then loads a couple spoonfuls of grounds into the machine. "They still make Maxwell House. Who'd have thought something like that would stand the test of time," he says. "But I guess people like what they know, even if it's lousy coffee."

Observations unfold. A key twists the guts of a lock.

Steve is standing an arm's length away, his posture comfortable, his hands open.

Steve's breath is steady. In, out. But his pupils are dilated. He's flushed.

Steve's eyes are very blue, even in the half-light.

And he can't meet them, not now, as he grits out, "I'm not him."

"But you came here."

"I don't— It doesn't _mean_ anything."

"Maybe not," Steve says. He pours out two cups of coffee, holds one out. "Or maybe it's a good place to start."


End file.
